reduce spending and shore up entitlement programs that are the primary drivers of our debt. >> i'm going to do everything within my power to be as conciliatory as possible. i want to work together but i want everyone to also understand, you can't push us around. we want to work together. >> why can't they all just get along? we'll ask senator olympia snowe, fed up with the gridlock, and congressman chris van hollen stuck in the middle of it. the blame game begin. mitt romney closes down headquarters. republicans wringing hands over what went wrong. >> don't tell me the republican party doesn't have outreach, we do. but what are we supposed to do now? are we supposed to, in order to get the hispanic and/or latino vote, did that mean open boarders and embrace the illegals? if we're not getting the female vote do we become pro-choice?

do we start passing out birth control pills? >> where does the party go from here? we'll talk to virginia governor bob macdonald. plus other ballot issues, big victories for same-sex marriage and the fight to legalize marijuana. and late night gets the last laugh now that the election's over. >> well, it's over. and as usual, the guy from kenya won. >> president obama did well with women beating romney by 11 binders. >> florida tonight remains too close to call. so where's the good news, you say? here it is. the election was decided without them. >> you don't listen to anything i say! i have been bringing you the truth! hot and hard now for seven years. how do you repay me?

four more years of hope and change! >> good day. i'm andrea mitchell live in new york. president obama crossed the finish line. now he faces the same entrenched political opposition and little time before very big deadlines. joining me now, chuck todd, host of "the daily rundown" and matt map wizard. the president said during the campaign he would veto legislate that tried to avoid or kick this crisis down the road by simply extending the bush tax cuts for rich people. does he still insist he will veto any such plan? >> well, don't forget he's always -- harry reid's the pocket veto. the democrat senate, the pocket veto, why he hasn't had to veto anything if something can't get through the senate, it's not going to debt to him, number one. look, i think the white house was pleasantly surprised and

open to what john boehner said. i mean, obviously, they appreciated what they thought was a very thoughtful and well thought out position that speaker boehner made publicly about where he sees the negotiations, where he's publicly putting out there where he's willing to move for now. obviously, everything's in negotiation, everything's a little bit of posturing. but it certainly was a much different tone, for instance, than what came out of mitch mcconnell's office office the election, and we've plowed through that plenty. i think what you're going to see now is the white house wants to attack a little bit of time, be thoughtful how public -- what they say publicly versus how much maneuverer ability is there. the other unnamed player is chuck shumer. chuck schumer publicly said i like simpson bowls in the it

made an effort but i don't like what they're trying to do with taxes. we can't do this with tax reform. taxes should go up. he wants to move the negotiating position on the democrats in a little bit of a different direction. so what president obama has to navigate is that politics a lit bit in the senate. senate democrats more emboldened. they netted some seats. they didn't just hold their majority. they got a stronger majority. >> right. >> so i think before he goes out too publicly he's got make sure -- the white house has to make sure they're on the same page as harry reid and vice versus, i think that's why there's a little bit of hess tans to responding to speaker boehner too soon. >> who are his point people? >> jack liou, tim geithner as well, he's a part of this. >> but he's a lame duck treasury secretary. what about the players who might be brought into the mix? what are we hearing. >> jack is one of the players.

that's why it's going to fell less lame duckish. geithner does have good personal relationships on the republican side. some republicans on capitol hill have never been big -- they personally get along well with jack liou but they believe he has pulled the president away from some issues. they miss -- to put it more bluntly, they miss bill daley. they thought bill daley was pulling the president into potentially creating a grand barge than everybody -- that the republicans were going to be more comfortable with and that they've been in a sense with republicans they think jack pulls the president farther away from where republicans get comfortable. so i think that that's where it's unclear what the reception will be with some republicans with jack liou. doesn't mat, jack is chief of staff here. it will be him -- >> contender for treasury

secretary, hints abouter skin bowls? >> internally no. there are some people on the external part of the democratic circles they'd like so see irs skin bowls. mark warner's one of them but reminder there's a republican governor. few senators names that get floated for various positions, john kerry for state, jack reid for defense. the situation in their states about, you know, democrats spent a lot of money to get 55 seats i don't know if they want to give up any right away. >> one question, florida, florida, florida, doesn't matter in terms of the presidency. does it matter? there will be a recount? >> well the way the law works, andrea, point one half of 1%, .5, .5 of 1% automatic recount. unless the losing candidate submits in writing to the secretary of state's office that

they don't want one. so everybody's waiting to see what the final count is. our guys, shelly, thinks it was up to .51 which would be just above the automatic. so i think everybody's waiting for it. we've got three more counties. our man in florida, three more counties. let's get that in. should have it in in two days and then we'll find out if it's needed. i know the republican governor there is pressuring, there's pressure on boston, if it qualifies for a recount they would like the romney folks not ask for one. >> well, that's some real reporting. thank you very much, chuck todd, as always. joining me now, chris cillizza, msnbc political analyst. chris cillizza, what about the fiscal cliff and negotiations? what do you think the president is doing and planning and how

engaged personally will he be in trying to avoid what obviously is a messy way to start a second term? >> well i think that chuck is right, there are still -- they are making sure that everyone on their team is kind of decided where they want to go. my guess would be, andrea, he's actually pretty engaged only because he's learned the lessons of his first term particularly on health care where it was sort of a well let's let congress work its will and we'll step in and get a bill together and get something done. obviously that process took a lot longer than the white house would have liked. it was significantly more contentious than the white house would have liked. my guess is he takes either 303 or 332, depending on where florida goes, he takes that electorate vote, he points to a real mandate and says, i'm going to step in here. i'm going to get involved. this is what i ran on.

i don't think he's going to do that two days after election. we have until the end of the year. i think le wait, make sure that harry reid, nancy pelosi and himself are all kind of know where they're going to go and if republicans say this, we're photog say that, that they game this out before he and his people step forward more prominently. my guess, it is a bit of a guess, educated guess, i'd like to think, he will be more activist than we've seen him in past big legislative fights. >> all of your guesses are educated guesses. you in chicago on election night, you had come from boston, you've been on the road. what are you picking up what are you hearing about the cabinet? >> well, i've just expanding on what chris said. i think the thing worth keeping in mine the president was very involved in the negotiations with john boehner over the grand bargain a little over a year ago. it's not like we're starting from scratch.

the whole thing was set in motion by the collapse of the talks and the sequester and negotiations by the super committee. they're starting with actually boehner and obama came quite close that summer. so they're starting with a lot of work done. it's one of the reasons why i think there's a chance -- there's a cause for hope that this can get done relatively quickly. they've had a lot of pieces of paper with a lot of numbers on them that got them close. chris is right, the president will feel like he'll have a stronger mandate in a stronger position and i also think they really -- think about the president he thinks of himself in historic terms. he already can see if he can get this done, and get it done whether by the end of the year or gets -- if you kick the can down the road into the early part of next year but you can get the big grand bargain down, man that will tee up a very stable, really great basis to work on for the rest of the

second term and put another huge trophy up in his mantle. so tet there next to health care reform putting the nation's fiscal house in order for the next several generations is a big accomplishment. there's a lot of optimism about that in chicago and in the white house. and there's a lot of talk about the things that they've learned over the course of last four years and how you can see it reflected in the speech tuesday night. he's coming back to this. he's a wiser president. a more experienced president. that gives them with the electorate success of tuesday it gives them confidence and optimism they can get something done. >> i would say a more humble president in a funny way though it was the peak of his success. he was voicing some humility about mistakes made, lessons learned. >> yeah. >> to both of you -- >> i was going to quickly add, the line that stood out for me in the speech, even if you didn't vote for me, i have listened to you. >> right. >> you would not have heard barack obama 2008 say that line.

whether he believes it or not, you would not have heard him say it. sore trry to interrupt. >> they understand the impact. new members of congress understand that we're talking, according to the congressional budget office $560 billion hit on the economy in the first year of this ten-year. that is slowing down the gdp by four percentage points that's kicking us into a deep recession. >> i think everybody's aware of that. i don't think that anybody, whether new members coming in now or whether existing members who have been there for a while i don't think anybody has any illusions of the urgency of this. it doesn't mean it's going to be easy. john boehner has to deal with the problems he had to deal with a year ago in terms of his caucus. it's really important that we are in a place where we're further away from the 2010 victory for the tea party. the members of his caucus that were most difficult to deal with

a summer ago, those people were coming off of a huge victory in 2010, now much further down road and coming off -- many got re-elected tuesday but the whole political environment has changed given the success of not just president obama but democrats more broadly in congress. and it does change everyone's incentive structure. there's no one, no one, who is politically well affected positively affected if the country drops into a second dip of a massive recession in the first half of 2013. >> chris cillizza, john heilemann, thank you both very much. joining me now to discuss the fiscal cliff negotiations, from inside, the house democratic perspective, chris van hollen, ranking member of the house budget committee and someone who served on the super committee. we've not completely depressed you about what you face, you know what you face. you've been in talks that have reds during the campaign. i would argue there was nothing specific other than hints from either mitt romney or president obama during the campaign that

would tell people exactly how they were going to deal with these cuts and what they were going to do and how to approach entitlements. you can argue they don't have a mandate to deal with this. how do you approach the fiscal cliff in. >> well, of course the fiscal cliff has two pieces. one the across the board meat ax sequester cuts which everybody agrees are a bad way to cut the deficit. and i do believe we'll find a way to buy down those cuts, find alternative ways to save money for a temporary period while we negotiate other things. now, on the tax part of the fiscal cliff, i would argue strongly that that was a major part of the campaign and -- >> i'm talking about the budget cuts, right. >> he was crystal clear he said we should avoid the main part of the fiscal cliff by extending all of the middle class tax cuts and that number you used of around $500 billion, most of that comes from the middle class tax cuts and what the president has said we should extend all of

those middle class tax cuts right away. it's republicans who have said, wait a minute, nobody gets any tax relief unless very wealthy people, people like mitt romney, get this bonus tax break. >> but the president has said he would veto a bill that would extend all of the bush tax cuts, give the wealthy the continuing tax break. >> that's right. >> and republicans don't blink, and he vetoes it, that does send us off the cliff to the extent that that money's taken out of people's pockets. >> i understand, andrea. i think it's just unsustainable politically for republicans to go into the month of january allowing us to go over the tax portion of the fiscal cliff, telling the american public that 98% of the american people don't get any tax relief because they're holding out for a bonus tax break for the very wealthy. in fact what they're saying is that, unless people earning over $250,000 get an extra tax cut on

the amount they earn over $250,000, then nobody else in the country gets tax relief. and this was essential argument in the campaign. mitt romney and paul ryan talked about the fact that this was a choice election and the american people made their choice on this issue and in fact the exit polls, as you know, show that a majority of the american people think we need to take this balanced approach to reducing the deficit because if we don't ask these higher income earners to contribute a little bit more reducing the deficit, everybody else gets whacked that much harder. we have less to invest in education for our kids, seniors on medicare have to pay more and the president has all along said we need to take a balanced approach. >> congressman, everybody's focused on the bush tax cuts. there's the alternative minute tax that will hit some 26 million households and there's -- there are costs to some people from obama care

which is now acknowledged, we can say obama care without it being pejorative since the president embraced it during the campaign. there are other taxes that go in, the payroll tax cut from 2011 expires. what happen do you you do about all of that. >> alternative minimum tax there's universal agreement that we should continue to fix the -- we should get rid of the alternative minuimum tax but congress needs to extend the patch for another year, two years while we come up with a permanent fix, bgetting rid of amt, which is universal agreement. the president said move forward on the pieces we agree with, including that. on the payroll tax cut i'm one who -- my personal view is that we should extend at least for a year the payroll tax cut or something that's equivalent to it, that provides a little extra money to about 160 million

working americans and given the fact that the economy remains fragile, it's important to either do that or something like it for another year because you raise a really important point. in addition to coming up with a long-term plan to reduce the deficit we really need to focus on jobs and the economy, and that is an important piece of it extending the payroll tax cut or its equivalent. when republicans say extend the tax break for the folks at the very top for job purpose in the economy, that has been proven to be untrue and congressional budget office, which is a nonpartisan organization says, you do much more to boost the economy by a temporary extension of the payroll tax cut. so that's the kind of thing we should be focused on. helps 160 million americans. if republicans are saying they're going to deny tax relief to the middle class or 160

million americans because they're holding out for tax breaks for folks at the very top that's not an argument they're able to carry successfully to the american people. just like they couldn't carry the, you know, the president talked about student loans during election. he didn't want interest rates to double. the republicans were resisting that at first but when it came time, they ultimately joined with the president. >> congressman, we only have a couple of seconds. let me ask who is your democratic leader going to be? >> well, nancy pelosi has done an absolutely terrific job and obviously it's her decision as to whether or not she wants to continue. but she fought throughout this campaign. she was everywhere. she was a great speaker. she's been a great leader. so i'm sure the caucus would support her, if she decides to continue here. obviously these are decisions that she's going to be making. >> chris van hollen, thank you very much sir. how are republicans reacting to election losses?

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if mitt romney cannot win in this economy, then the tipping point has been reached. we have more takers thanmakers and it's over. >> i'm sorry, this is going to sound cruel, but some of the times i didn't feel like he was connecting with the material. and i think you have to connect with the material. maybe it's people who have been in the trenches for decades, not someone who was just a success in business. >> some republicans are acting they need grief counsel in aftermath of tuesday's losses. maybe they should look at their policies on immigration and issues during the primary debates are viewed by voter whose are increasingly not white

men. bob macdonald, governor of virginia and chairman of the governors association joins plea now. thanks for being with us. let's talk about the election results. i know in virginia it was a different story for mitt romney. but elsewhere in the country there really was a real demographic problem. what do you think the party should be doing? what conversations are you having internally? >> well, none yet. it's only less than 48 hours after the polls closed. certainly disappointed with the results, andrea, i thought paul ryan and mitt romney would have been very good leaders on jobs and debt reduction. we came up short. i credit the president. he ran a very disciplined campaign and get out the vote and final closing tone i think carried date in virginia. carried it by a couple of points. on the other side we run 8 out of the 11 congressmen in virginia and 30 republican governors nationwide, 60% of all

of the nation's governors, maybe 31 by the time washington state is done. so there are positives that we look at. when you lose the presidency, that's -- that's tough. and we'll have to continue to look at with our tone, with our message especially to young people and new voters, minorities, and to our ground game, how do we do better. >> despite the victories which you correctly point out, you also lost two senate seats that were really ultimately winnable when we talk about tokin and ri mur murdoch. you had a chance of regaining the senate and didn't. >> very disappointing. i think everybody knows that some of the comments that were made were wrong and obviously cost them at the polls. at the end of the day the election was about the economy and jobs and debt and energy.

and i thought our candidates had a good message on that. but we didn't connect with enough of the people that were those voters that come out only in presidential years. 45% of vote came out to vote for me for governor. i won by 18 points but when the vote gets up to 76% we only get 48% of the vote. so that's what we've got to figure out. those more occasional voters, independent voters, how do we do better? obviously we'll have a lot of discussions about that. >> are you among those who blame chris christie? you're a governor with a lot of weather issues and dealt with fema, dealt with fema under democratic presidents, do you agree with critics of chris christie for embracing the president? >> president obama won the race. mitt romney lost the race. he was a great candidate. the storm did halt momentum that mitt romney built up after that -- after the first debate.

look, chris christie was the first governor to endorse mitt romney, did more events around the country than about anybody. he was trying to do what he thought was right for new jersey while 24 of his fellow citizens were found dead. i mean i think he tried to do the best he could. and if fema can help you, and they're doing okay you say good things about fema. so i don't blame chris christie at all. look, it was a team effort we all win and lose as a team. we've got to figure out as a team going forward how to do a about thor job putting forth conservative principles to minority voters, new voters, and win. >> thanks so much, governor bob macdonnell. will the president and the new congress tackle immigration reform? we'll be talking to the newly elected representative, congressman from san antonio coming up next on "andrea mitchell reports." time for the "your business"

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your twin brother is now a member of congress. what -- it's not a popular body. what advice to do you have for him now that he's headed to washington, d.c.? >> the first thing i told him was that he could have it. >> san antonio mayor and dnc keynote speaker, happy it's his twin brother taking a trip to capitol hill walking into a divided house of representatives. congressman-elect what keen castro joins me now. you didn't take your brother's advice. you're not avoiding washington. >> no. >> and as a new freshman congressman, coming to a place that has been know for ynotorio unpopular how do you approach the fiscal cliff? >> this election was a clear signal from the american people

that they want both parties to cooperate, to go up there, to sit down at the table and work in earnest to try to reach agreement on the major things confronting the nation, including the fiscal cliff. for me, it's the same approach that i've taken in the texas legislature where we have a bipartisan committee chairman head, for example, and so for me it's going to be being able to work with republicans in an earnest way. and i think you can do that without compromising principles in what you stand for and in what you believe. >> what do you do knowing the needs of your district when it comes down to hard choices about cuts in domestic spending? >> sure. look, there's no question that these are very difficult questions and that's why there's a lot of wrangling about them. we know that in the long term we're going to have to things to reform entitlements. but we also know we shouldn't have self-inflicted wounds the way we did over the fight with the debt ceiling. we've got some time to figure this stuff out.

so we shouldn't do anything in a haste or something that hurts our nation unnecessarily. >> congressman, congressman-elect, what about the new challenge for the republican party? i know you're coming at it from the democratic perspective. but what advice do you think that republicans should be heeding, including those in your own state on the whole question of immigration reform? your governor, rick perry in early debates, was trying to be forward leaning about giving kids who had come here from families who were lehere withou access to documentation he got clobbered on that and mitt romney won the nomination on taking a hard right position on it. >> i think the republican party, as my brother said is, going to have to do a gut check and figure out if they're the party of pete wilson and joe arpaio and others who are hard-liners on this issue. the fact is, latinos are part of the american family.

and oftentimes these policies make latinos feel as though they're not accepted by many folks in the republican party. i think the election numbers bear out the latino electorate continues to grow it will continue to grow, and so you know, i hope that they find a solution to it and they're able to be more accommodating, not only in tone and that's been mentioned several times, but actually in substance. it's not just what you say but actually the kinds of laws that you pass. it's also not just who you elect. they've elected several folks now, brian sandy val, marco cruz, a real effect on the party and moderate them with respect to the issues. >> thank you very much. thanks. and look forward to meeting you in person as you come to washington. lots of luck to you. outgoing senator olympia snowe on the gridlock in washington and republican losses. plus -- after a big election win what are the next legal challenges

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husband of former congresswoman gabby giffords delivered a victim impact statement on his wife's behalf at the sent tenting hearing of jared loughner. while he tried to extinguish of the beauty of life he failed. kelly asked us to look in the mir somewhere question how he was able to spiral downward without earlier interventions. kelli was joined in the courtroom both staring at loughner. he killed 6, injuring 12 histories. one of the clear voices has been olympia snowe. retiring because in part she says it is dysfunctional. joining me now, senator snowe. talk about the fiscal cliff, combination of deadlines created to avoid economic crisis and now

it may have the opposite effect. what do you think needs to be done? you're going to be a key vote on this. >> well, most certainly the president and the congress and the leadership need to be working together immediately to determine the framework and the specifics to avoid the fiscal cliff of both the expiration of the tax cuts as well as the major automatic cuts. in other words we have to come up with options and al turn tibs how we approach both issues so we do not trigger another recession. i mean that's a pair ament given the continuous nature with the economy. nobody should be satisfied where we stand with economic growth that has been subpar for far too long, given the amount of money that has been expended, you know, in the budget, to address some of the economic issues. but yet has failed to ignite the kind of economic growth that

this country deserves. >> is it good enough to kick the problem, the can, down the road? >> well it isn't. the temporary nature of doing that means that it creates another state of uncertainty. there are certain issues that obviously cannot be completely addressed in a lame duck session, which is of course tax reform. that's something i've called for beginning the president obama's administration in 2009. that's going to be an essential issue as we go forward. how we address the expiring tax rates and the automatic cuts in terms of the balance that's contained within the cuts, i think really does have to be addressed in some way now to give some certainty as we move forward. nevertheless based on what we have to dress in the lame duck session on the tax issues and spending cuts it will create a level of uncertainty going

forward until everything is finally determined in the new congress. that's regrettable because obviously we could have avoided all of that and certainly could and avoided a fiscal cliff condrived by the congress, a manufactured crisis. we didn't have to be in this position that we have placed the country in today. >> do you have any sense, now that you're back, that lessons have been learned and anything will be different in the next congress? >> probably a better sense next week, andrea, when we reconvene and having discussions among our colleagues about how to proceed. i think that no one should under estimate the severity of the situation that this country faces, not only are we facing this problem economically but we're part of a globally integrated economy. and we know what's transpiring in europe and i had an opportunity to visit some of the countries on the front lines of the eurozone crisis in august. anything could serve as a trip wire to igniting another

financial crisis. how we handle this lame duck session is going to be absolutely pivotal and crucial. i hope people have learned a lesson in the last election what people are thirsting for, c constructive problem solving and bipartisan. i believe this is a tipping point in this country. >> senator olympia snowe, thank you. thanks very much. >> thank you, andrea. and same-sex marriage advocates are celebrating historic advances on ballot initiatives in at least three stated, possibly four, when we get final results. joining me chad griffin, president of the human rights campai campaign. congratulations, your side won big victories and you're a major part of that. what do you do next? how do you translate this into a larger movement? >> thank you for have me here. it really was an equality landslide on tuesday. we not only won, you know, one race in the country.

we won all of the races from coast to coast. marriage equality was on the ballot we have conclusively won in all four states from maine to maryland to washington and we defeated a hateful discriminatory marriage ban in the state of minnesota. first time we won at ballot box. and we've won all of them this time. >> technically our decision dechk is looking at results in washington state because they haven't counted enough for us to officially declare it. you feel the referendum is so far ahead that you think that you're going to win there as well. >> that's right. >> what are the next steps in terms of other states or challenges or translating this in into reality for people? >> it's absolutely the right question because although we had tremendous victories on tuesday night, we have to remember that still the vast majority of americans live in stated where they didn't feel those equality victories on tuesday. and so we turn this corner and move momentum into other states

where we have the opportunity to win at state legislatures and in courts from state legislatures in delaware going across the country going to hawaii and states in between. we're not going to slow down now that we've had victories and now that the anti-gay right is on the defensive. we're going to take momentum and double down and move into states and keep working until quality, particularly marriage equality reaches every single person and every single corner of this country. >> before you took the job with the human rights campaign you were the initiator of the legal challenge to prop 8, hiring ted olson and david boise and now it's all the way to the supreme court. is that what we're now waiting for? is that argument? >> that's right. moving from the momentum on election night to november 20th, when the united states supreme court will meet and consider a group of doma cases, a case out

of arizona and now proposition 8 case, perry case, we have won that case in two courts and we are waiting to determine whether the supreme court is going to grant cert in one or all of those cases. we'll know that probably the week after thanksgiving. and they don't grant cert marriage will start in california. if they grant that case or the other cases we should know by early next summer what the results are. i'm hopeful that this court, as has the lower courts, will side with freedom, liberty, and equality. >> chad griffin, thank you so much. we've known each other a long time. great to see you. >> indeed we have. a pleasure to be here. >> and up next, the class of 2016, would you believe, who will be the leaders, the candidates? this is "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 let's talk about low-cost investing. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 at schwab, we're committed to offering you tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 low-cost investment options--

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political ads, debate and polls and there's talk of 2016. joining me now, "time's" managing editor, richard stengel. say it isn't so. >> the political class, andrea, folks leak us and i think professional consultants, they have been thinking about it already. >> and the candidates themselves, possible candidates. you have a special commemorative election issue. but you've done portraits and talked about 2016 candidates. first and foremost, certainly a lot of speculation about hillary clinton. could we have a hillary clinton/jeb bush race in 2016? >> i wouldn't rule anything out. we have there is great photo portfolio of folks and we called the article 2016. people weren't posing for it because they said hey i know i'm running for president then. but certainly the idea who is who will be the leaders of the republican party and the democratic party going forward? obviously with barack obama now a two-term president whose term

limited, there will be two fresh nominees from each party. and as you know in terms of fund-raising and all of these things people think and things people think years in advance. the next day there were lots of people that started to click and think about 2016. >> joe biden on election day was asked is this the last time you'd be voting for yourself, and he said he didn't think so. joe biden is thinking about another run and running for president again, which he's done before. he would hope with a better outcome. there's also andrew cuomo, frort and foremost in new york state certainly with all of the budget and other crises but now with the storm crisis. and chris christie on the republican side. >> yes. certainly being governor of new york has classically been a great platform to run for president from, and i think could be again. you know, andrew is mindful, of course, of the experience of his father, who was also a governor

of new york, who contemplated running for president and never actually did. chris yisy also because of his performance during the great storm, because of the fact that he's a man who speaks his mind, because he was someone that the republican party -- some of them who might wish he had run this time, he's certainly very well positioned for 2016. >> who else in the republican -- when we talk about the republican ranks, you have to talk about marco rubio. he's positioning him and giving foreign policy speeches and certainly a party that is challenged by its inability to communicate with the rising latino population has to look at marco rubio. >> a lot of people after the day after the lakz thought why didn't we nominate rubio with romney he. how do we appeal to this -- the fastest growing population group

of latinos, and marco rubio would be one way? >> what about paul ryan? i'm not sure you have a portrait he of paul ryan. >> we got famous with him lifting those weights. certainly, he goes to the very top of the list of the republican party of people who would be positioned to run in 2016. certainly for those parts of the republican party, people whobl, you know, what? maybe our nominee wasn't conservative enough rather than too conservative. people may say let's put paul ryan right there in the mix. >> thanks so much. we look forward to the new issue of "time" magazine out now, and we will be right back.

and that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." tomorrow on the show we examine why romney lost the election. plus, oscar-winning director oliver stone on the untold story of the united states. my colleague tamron hall has a

look at what's next on "news nation." >> great to see you. in the next hour developing news. right now former congresswoman gabrielle giffords is in a courtroom facing the man that tried to take her life. her husband just addressed him directly after listening to heart-breaking testimony from other victims. also we're learning morn behind the scenes. details about the president's strategy to beat governor romney and what was a big surprise to the president on election night. we'll reveal that answer. so it begins. say it ain't so. just in the last couple of hours we learned that senator marco rubio will headline an event for iowa's governor in the first informant nation caucus state. can it be he's testing the waters for 2016? but i'm still stubbed up. [ male announcer ] truth is, nyquil doesn't unstuff your nose. what? [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus liquid gels speeds relief to your worst cold symptoms

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